The TUS Badminton Club Annual Tournament 2003

This year the tournament was organised by Ken Hawkes and Carole Zumbach as the previous year's organisers copped out.

The End

No, not really. Starting at the beginning: Lots of entrants dropped out because of: 'flu, a 'peoples' tournament, injury, or didn't bother to enter. Shame really as Carole and Ken had prepared a professional tournament with baskets of fruit and goodies. I imagine that most of the participants enjoyed it (except for various cries of "that's not possible" and most memorable "it would be easier to nail a pudding to the wall").

After coffee and cupcakes* provided by the club we started around 10 with a warmup led by Chrigi which was (apparently) very funny if you weren't involved.
After an explanation of how ball sports originated (if you missed this tough luck) from Carole we jumped into the tournament.
*cupcakes is easier to spell than croissants.

We were a little short of numbers so instead of the normal swiss system (Schoch) we had groups with a playoff round between the groups, giving 4-5 games each. Julian was the only Junior so he didn't get a group of his own but did very well, placing just short of the medals in the 3rd/4th division category.

The two finals were APP vs Kaspar and Basil vs Chrigu. Neither Urs nor Kaspar had much trouble with any opponents and each finsihed top of their group. In the grand final Kaspar finished Urs off playing a very strong second set which left Urs scrambling to get the sharp smashes to the sidelines. The match between Basil and Chrigu was more even but in the end Basil just returned more shuttles and took the last point (which in case you didn't realise means that you win...).

Around six the matches were finished and the players showered and we descended on the presents table. Most opted for the safe choice of chocs (instead of e.g. spaghetti disguised as wine); a number of mysterious presents proved to be useful items like home-made honey, sunglasses etc. Not a single mathom amongst the lot. Next we proceeded to the dinner table where we gorged ourselves on 'fondue chinoise' and/or spaghetti until satiation or stupifaction set in.

Special mentions go to:

• Tinu, Danu and Eru for not giving up in the third set

• Simu, Basil, Beat and Hanni for the most court mileage

• James for being the only Junior

• Tom for the most promising newcomer

• Charlotte for the best Lady

• Raphü for being soo pleased about 6th place

• Nicole, Mark and Nadja R. for joining us at dinner

• Anonymous persons who didn't take the trouble to wrap their presents

and last but not least to Carole and Ken for organising the whole shebang.

Result